News

Latest stories from the Department of Media and Communications

New report on the future of national news agencies in Europe (Feb 2019)

National news agencies in many European countries are facing significant financial, political and operational pressures, and must innovate and diversify if they are to survive. They must also work to raise awareness of their place within the news ecosystem, so that politicians, policymakers and the general public better understand their role of supplying reliable and trustworthy news to media and their users, new research led by Prof Terhi Rantanen and Atte Jääskeläinen has found. Find out more.

PhD Researcher Gianfranco Polizzi's Q&A with LSE about his research and life as a doctoral candidate (Feb 2019)

Gianfranco Polizzi, a third-year ESRC PhD researcher in the Department talks to LSE News about his doctoral project on how digital literacy and civic, political engagement shape one another; and about LSE's world-leading academics, wonderful and welcoming PhD community, and fantastic resources. Find out more.

Shani Orgad releases new book HeadingHome: Motherhood, Work, and the Failed Promise of Equality (Jan 2019)

In her new book, Dr Shani Orgad draws on in-depth, personal, and profoundly ambivalent interviews with highly educated London women who left paid employment to take care of their children while their husbands continued to work in high-powered jobs. Despite identifying the structural forces that maintain gender inequality, these women still struggle to articulate their decisions outside the narrow cultural ideals that devalue motherhood and individualize success and failure. Find out more.

Charlie Beckett - Why has there been a recent slump in press freedom? (Jan 2019)

Recent reports show a global slump in press freedom with unprecedented levels of violence towards journalists. Professor Charlie Beckett, Director of Polis and the Media Policy Project talks to LSE Thinks about why this might be the case.

Prof Philip Schlesinger of the University of Glasgow and Visiting Professor in the Department delivered the first keynote session of the 2019 MeCCSA Conference at the University of Stirling, entitled 'What’s happening to the public sphere?'.

New Polis report on blockchain and journalism (Jan 2019)

Last autumn it was blockchain technology that got the lead role in the popular “X will save journalism” series. Blockchain would, we were told, solve the problems of monetisation, trust, content integrity, user participation, centralization, governance and even ownership. But typical to this genre, it was not entirely clear just how this would be done in practice. To find an answer visiting fellow Mattias Erkkilä spent a month with Polis at LSE talking to media startups using blockchain and experts in the field. Read the report.

Gillette's new ad about toxic masculinity and #MeToo drew quick and sharp criticism. Professor Sarah Banet-Weiser spoke to NBC News to highlight the campaign as part of a much longer tradition of 'commodity activism', where political messages are harnessed to boost the reputation of the company and to sell products. Find out more.

in Episode 21 of LSE's award-winning podcast series LSE IQ, Dr Rodolfo Leyva talks about whether we can afford our consumer society, and explains that the emphasis on materialism as a way to be happy makes us more inclined to be selfish. Find out more.

PhD Researcher Zoë Glatt's Q&A with LSE about her research and life as a doctoral candidate (Dec 2018)

Zoë Glatt, a second year ESRC-funded PhD researcher in the Department talks to LSE News about her doctoral project capturing experiences of content creators as they navigate an unpredictable and precarious career; and about LSE's world-leading academics, wonderful and welcoming PhD community, and fantastic resources. Find out more.

Welcome to our New Head of Department (Aug 2018)

On 1 August 2018, Professor Sarah Banet-Weiser joined LSE as Head of the Department of Media and Communications. Professor Banet-Weiser joins the Department from USC Annenberg, where she was Vice Dean and Director of the School for Communication. Her research interests include gender in the media, identity, citizenship, and cultural politics, consumer culture and popular media, race and the media, and intersectional feminism.

We thank Professor Robin Mansell for her term as Head of Department for 2017-18. Professor Mansell will now return to focus on her research, writing, teaching and supervision.

New report on data-driven discrimination (Jul 2018)

A new report written by the team behind the Justice, Equity and Technology project has been released focusing on automated discrimination in data-driven systems. The report explains how algorithms discriminate and why this raises concerns for civil society organisations across Europe. More here.

Sonia Livingstone advises on Council of Europe recommendations to EU states (Jul 2018)

The Council of Europe announced new recommendations to member states on children's rights in the digital environment. Professor Sonia Livingstone was Expert Advisor in drafting these recommendations. More here.

New report on the economic benefits of connected airline operations (Jun 2018)

Visiting Fellow Dr Alexander Grous has released chapter 2 of his report Sky High Economics. Following the first instalment, Quantifying the Commercial Opportunities of Passenger Connectivity for the Global Airline Industry, which focused on revenue potential, this second report shines new light on the cost benefits of inflight connectivity. More here.

Jane Vincent and Leslie Haddon release new book (Jun 2018)

Smartphone Cultures, a new edited collection by Departmental researchers Jane Vincent and Leslie Haddon, explores emerging questions about the ways in which this mobile technology and its apps have been produced, represented, regulated and incorporated into everyday social practices. The various authors in this volume each locate their contributions within the circuit of culture model. More here.

Skakuntala Banaji and Bingchun Meng launch new books (Jun 2018)

The Department of Media and Communications was delighted to host the launch of two new books by Departmental faculty, Children and Media in Indiaby Dr Shakuntala Banaji and The Politics of Chinese Media by Dr Bingchun Meng. Dr Banaji and Dr Meng gave short presentations on their books, followed by reflections from discussants Prof David Buckingham and Prof Harriet Evans. More here.

Damian Tambini compiles report for Council of Europe (May 2018)

A new Council of Europe publication entitled “Internet and electoral campaigns - Study on the use of internet in electoral campaigns” has been prepared by the committee of experts on media pluralism and transparency of media ownership (MSI-MED) of the Council of Europe. The rapporteur for the report was Associate Professor Dr Damian Tambini. More here.

Bart Cammaerts discusses media and protest with #LSEThinks (Apr 2018)

Dr Bart Cammaerts, Associate Professor, spoke to #LSEThinks about his new book The Circulation of Anti-Austerity Protest, and the importance of the media in organising, communicating and mobilising the political protesters. Find out more.

Prof Terhi Rantanen and Atte Jääskeläinen were invited speakers at the spring conference of the European Alliance of News Agencies (EANA) in Bucharest, where they shared some of the preliminary findings from their project, The Future of National News Agencies in Europe. You can find out more about the project here.

Rafal Zaborowski wins LSE Student-led Award (Apr 2018)

Dr Rafal Zaborowski, LSE Fellow and PhD Alumni of the Department, has won an LSE Student-led Teaching Excellence Award in the ‘Class Teacher’ category. The panel commented: “Students particularly appreciated his emphasis on fair, respectful participation and innovative seminar activities which allow students to consider the views of different stakeholders.”

In the wake of the UK Health Secretary’s threat that social media companies will be faced with new legislation if they don't do more to protect children online, Professor Sonia Livingstone, an expert on child online safety, talks to BBC News about how parents and children would like to see social media companies do things differently.

Dr Omar Al-Ghazzi, Assistant Professor, spoke to Al-Jazeera’s The Listening Post about chemical weapon attacks in Syria, and specifically about the way in which images have been politicized to adhere to political agendas.

Dr Shakutala Banaji, Associate Professor, spoke to Al-Jazeera’s The Stream about how an institution like National Geographic can confront its own racist reporting, after the 130-year-old magazine apologised for portraying the world through a racist lens.

In a recent piece for LSE News, Dr Damian Tambini, who has studied the growing power of internet companies since the late 1990s, summarises the wider change in mood as going from ‘hope to despair’. Dr Tambini's comments draw on the chapter he contributed to his 2018 co-edited collection Digital Dominance: The Power of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. Find out more.

New report from Parenting for a Digital Future's national survey of UK parents (Apr 2018)

The Parenting for a Digital Future team, led by Prof Sonia Livingstone has released a second report ahead of the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) coming into force. The report found that parents want more protection for their teens online, and raises the question of who is looking out for children and their data privacy? Find out more.

Sam Mejias talks to LSE Thinks about why so many young Britons have a European identity (Apr 2018)

In this short video for LSE Thinks, Dr Sam Mejias, research officer for CATCH-EyoU talks about what Brexit means for today's generation of British young people and how the current turbulent and changing political climate of the UK influences the way that young people consider Europe.

Winnie Li, doctoral researcher, joins LSE's Prof Beverley Skeggs and Prof Jennifer Brown to discuss her research around rape survivors and social media in Episode 13 of the LSE IQ podcast Are we seeing a new gender equality revolution

In her latest monograph, Dr Lee Edwards argues that public relations is not merely an organizational tool, but a powerful influence on social and political life. From carefully considered communication by multinational corporations, to government campaigns that manage public opinion, to the self-promotion of celebrities via social media, public relations is central to our individual and collective lives. “Lee Edwards’ important book offers a crucial and unique perspective on public relations by emphasizing society and culture as a sense-making context for PR.” (Sarah Banet-Weiser, USC Annenberg School for Communication). Find out more.

Bart Cammaerts releases new book The Circulation of Anti-Austerity Protest (Mar 2018)

Bart Cammaerts talks to BBC Radio 4 about technology and resistance (Feb 2018)

Dr Bart Cammaerts, Associate Professor, was interviewed by Aleks Krotoski for BBC Radio 4's The Digital Human. Dr Cammaerts discussed the means by which technologies get taken up by individuals to express resistance or dissatisfaction, but that the effects and trajectory of social change are unpredictable.

PhD alumnus Dr César Jiménez-Martínez appeared in Brazil’s Brasilianismo Blog to discuss the global Image of Brazil during the June 2013 demonstrations. Dr Jiménez-Martínez discussed some of the main points of his PhD research, such as the influence of the international media and the impact of the protests on the way Brazil is viewed abroad. See here.

On 17 November, Professor Sonia Livingstone was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. To mark the occasion, Sonia gave a public lecture entitled 'Where are the (implied) audiences in mediation and mediatization research?'. More here>>

Commenting on the honour, Professor Livingstone said: "It’s wonderful to receive such an honour from the University of Copenhagen, for my work on media audiences and publics, and the mediation of childhood, as I have long admired and engaged with the excellent work of colleagues in the Department of Media, Communication and Cognition."

Doctoral Researcher Paula Kiel gives TED-x Talk

On 1 September, Paula Kiel gave a TED-x Talk at The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, entitled 'Keeping communications alive when you're dead'.Watch here>>

The theme of the event was ‘The Next Stage’, with Paula’s talk centred around the ways we communicate with the deceased in contemporary life. Paula writes and researches on the subject of post-mortem digital interaction as part of her doctoral project, which you can learn more about in this LSE video that Paula recorded introducing her research. Watch here>>

Dr Wendy Willems, Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Communications, was featured in Al Jazeera’s ‘The Listening Post’ on 3 September to discuss ‘Mugabe’s Media Legacy’. Dr Willems was invited to participate as a result of her research on media and the ‘Zimbabwe crisis’. Watch here>>

Alison Powell leads 'data walk' for Royal Geographical Society

Dr Alison Powell will be leading a ‘data walkshop’ in the vicinity of the Royal Geographical Society on Friday 25 August. Explore and discuss the data surveillance processes at play, and their effects on trade and exchange. Alison and the group will be working through a process of rapid group ethnography that Alison has developed with the Museum of Contemporary Commodities and other projects to investigate data mediations and their effects. Book a place here. See more about Alison’s innovative research proecess of ‘data walking’ here.

Sonia Livingstone interviewed about Child Exploitation Online

Professor Sonia Livingstone OBE has spent years talking to tech companies about how they should tackle the growing problem of online child abuse. The question is: do they want to? Professor Livingstone is interviewed on this and more by Thomas Fox-Brewster of Forbes. More here.

Shani Orgad presents research to Cabinet Office

On 17 July, Dr Shani Orgad (Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications) gave an opening presentation to the Women Returners Project Sprint, organised by the Policy Lab at the Cabinet Office. Dr Orgad’s presentation drew upon her research into women who have left paid employment, entitled Heading Home: Cultural Representations and Lived Experience of Women, Work and Family. Click here for more on this project.

Dr Shakuntala Banaji comments on UK General Election 2017

Dr Shakuntala Banaji, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications, has contributed a piece to Election Analysis about young people and propaganda in the wake of the 2017 general election. Dr Banaji comments "The election result is a resounding confirmation that young voters, socialist values, alternative leftwing media and grassroots work on doorsteps can challenge mainstream media."Click here for more information.

Sonia Livingstone contributes to Governmental report

Professor Sonia Livingstone has contributed to a report for the Lords Select Communications Committee, Growing up with the Internet. The Committee called on the Government to establish a Children’s Digital Champion to ensure coordinated and sustained action from Ministers across all departments and to present robust advocacy on behalf of children to industry. More here.

Sonia Livingstone speaks to the International Institute of Communications' Policy

Watch Professor Sonia Livingstone speaking about her role as an advocate of children's rights online and her 'edit' of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to include the challenges of the digital environment. Read more here.

PhD Researcher wins prestigious Canadian award

Brooks DeCillia, doctoral researcher in the Department of Media and Communications was selected as 2017 recipient of Canada’s Dalton Camp Award for ‘Best Essay by a Post-Secondary Student’ The Dalton Camp Award, presented by Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, is an essay competition which focuses on the link between democracy and the media in Canada. Brooks’ award-winning essay ‘In Defense of CBC’ is available to read here.

New special issue co-edited by Sonia Livingstone

‘Children’s and Young People’s Rights in the Digital Age’ is an important and timely special issue of New Media & Society which focuses attention on rights-based approaches towards balancing children’s need for protection online with their capacity to maximize the opportunities and benefits of connectivity. Guest edited by Sonia Livingstone (LSE) and Amanda Third (Western Sydney University), this special issue offers a collection of papers which draw out the wider tensions and dilemmas driving the emerging agenda for children’s rights in the digital age.

New Report from Visiting Professor Jim Macnamara

The Department of Media and Communications, along with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) are proud to jointly publish Creating a 'Democracy for Everyone' Strategies for increasing listening and engagement by government, a report of a two-year, three-country research study by Visiting Professor Jim Macnamara of how, and how well governments, corporations, and other types of organisations listen to their stakeholders and publics. In the wake of Brexit, the shock election of Donald Trump, the rise of the Alt-right in Europe and other countries, and ‘hung’ parliaments in Australia in recent years, the findings send a warning signal to governments and all types of organisations.

Myria Georgiou in new videos on migration and media

Myria Georgiou contributes to online learning resources for refugees and non-refugees by discussing media narratives on the “migration crisis” in Europe. This e-learning resource is produced by Migration Matters and the curriculum is developed in collaboration with Sharing Perspectives Foundation (an EU-funded organisation that conducts virtual exchanges with refugees and non-refugees to promote mutual understanding and dialogue on contemporary themes). Myria’s video is available here.

PhD Researcher César Jiménez-Martínez presents at UK conference

On 6th April, PhD researcher César Jiménez-Martínez presented a paper called 'Replacement, adjustment and reappropriation: Examining the role of the media during the June 2013 protests in Brazil', during the annual conference of the Society of Latin American Studies, at the University of Glasgow.

Public event given by Wendy Willems

On 23 February, Dr Wendy Willems spoke at the Oxford Internet Institute. Her talk, Spatializing Publics engaged in issues around mobile social media, urban sociability and the materiality of civic engagement.

New book co-authored by Nick Couldry

The German Communication Association (DGPuK) has awarded its 2017 Theory Prize to The Mediated Construction of Reality (2016, Polity) by Nick Couldry (LSE) and Andreas Hepp (University of Bremen). The book innovatively and originally builds on existing theories and develops a basis for an understanding of a society that is shaped by media, digitalization and datafication. In their monograph, Couldry and Hepp discuss the question of the profound role digital media play in shaping and changing the social world, the consequences which can arise from that, but also what this means normatively for human coexistence

“A profound and illuminating attempt to bring core traditions of social theory into the study of media in the digital age. An excellent and pathbreaking book” ­ - Anthony Giddens

Media and Communications comes #1 in UK and #3 globally

LSE's Department of Media and Communications has been rated #1 in the UK and #3 globally in the 2017 QS World University Rankings, with USC Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication again rated #1 in the world. The two institutions collaborate on a double degree in MSc/MA Global Media and Communications, as well as joining forces to research the profound implications of media and communications technologies for our shared futures. Find out more.

Drawing on an original UK-wide study of public responses to humanitarian issues and how NGOs communicate them, this timely book provides the first evidence-based psychosocial account of how and why people respond or not to messages about distant suffering. The book highlights what NGOs seek to achieve in their communications and explores how their approach and hopes match or don’t match what the public wants, thinks and feels about distant suffering.

Irene Bruna Seu is Reader in the Department of Psychosocial Studies at Birkbeck, University of London, UK, and a Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist.

Shani Orgad is Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK.

“This volume presents cutting edge multi-method research which will contribute greatly to our understanding of strategies that can successfully motivate bystanders, NGOS, and governments to act in positive ways about humanitarian issues. This carefully-designed volume offers a careful, incisive analysis and impressively includes essays by both influential academics and advocates. A first-rate book!”

- Alison Dundes Renteln, Professor of Political Science, University of Southern California, USA)

Click here for a review from Paul Vanags, Head of Public Fundraising, Oxfam GB, UK

The Culture Secretary has commissioned Professor Sonia Livingstone, Professor Joanne Davidson and Dr Jo Bryce to provide up to date evidence of how young people use the internet, the dangers they face, and the gaps that exist in keeping them safe. The report will contribute to the Internet Safety Strategy aimed at making Britain the safest country in the world for children and young people to be online. The new cross-Government drive is being led by Culture Secretary Karen Bradley MP on behalf of the Prime Minister with a green paper expected in summer 2017.

“It’s really important that the UK’s new Internet Safety Strategy is grounded in solid evidence about children’s online risks and safety. We are now reviewing all the latest studies we can find, to counter some of the panicky headlines, put the risks into perspective, and guide the optimal mix of actions from government, industry, schools and parents.”

The recipient of the scholarship will be selected among candidates for the programme. Priority will be given to students from Sub-Saharan Africa, India and the UK.

How to apply

Once you have submitted your application for admission to LSE you will be emailed with a link to the LSE Graduate Financial Support Application form online. The deadline for completing the form is 26 April 2017, although we recommend you apply as soon as possible after receiving the link.

Please visit the Graduate Admissions website for information on how to apply.

On Friday 27 January, Professor Sonia Livingstone will speak at the Computers, Privacy and Data Protection 2017 conference ‘The Age of Intelligent Machines’.

Professor Livingstone will participate in a panel which discusses how best to protect the privacy & welfare of children & teens – so called digital natives – who are increasingly targeted by companies across their devices and online activities. She will bring insight from her work with the UK Council for Child Internet Safety Evidence Group to examine how and when children’s commercial media literacy develops, necessitating protection from regulation, parents and media education.

In the LSE Values in Practice (VIP) awards, Nicole Garnier, MSc Programmes Manager, was nominated in all three individual categories and highly commended in the LSE Citizenship Individual award. James Deeley, Departmental Research Manager was nominated in the ‘Unsung Hero’ category. Well done, Nicole and James! We are proud of you!

The Department of Media and Communications is delighted to announce that Sarah Banet-Weiser will be joining us as full Professor of Media and Communications from 2018.

Sarah is currently Director of the USC Annenberg School of Communication, Los Angeles, and will become our Head of Department from 1 September 2018.

"After everything that happened in politics in 2016 is there anyone left in the world who doesn’t think that journalism matters to democracy?" On 6 January, Charlie Beckett published a piece in the New Statesman on the relationship between journalism and politics. The article, Did the press create post-fact politics? also features on the Polis blog.

Sonia Livingstone and Mariya Stoilova have recently been awarded a grant from the LSE Knowledge Exchange Fund for working on Maximising children’s online opportunities and minimising risks for children around the world (MOMRO). This LSE funding will allow them to collaborate with colleagues from UNICEF Office of Research – Innocenti and with partners from Argentina, Montenegro, Serbia, South Africa, and the Philippines to extend and deepen the knowledge exchange and impact (KEI) from the Global Kids Online research project. MOMRO will involve developing a KEI toolkit for the GKO online platform with existing and new partners specifically designed to maximise opportunities and minimise risks online for children around the world.

Global Kids Online is attracting considerable interest from states, private sector and NGOs, and the pilot research in four countries has already informed the development of national policy and practice. Following the launch of the research toolkit in November 2016, it is vital to sustain and extend the project capacity for cross-national knowledge exchange among present and new partners and to embed the growing evidence base within policy and practice. MOMRO will aim to harness the international potential of the growing evidence-based and child rights approach to maximising opportunities and minimising risks in a fast-expanding, globalising digital environment.

The new funding will be used to exploit the KEI potential of just-completed research, running concurrently with expansion of the research to support the translation of the emerging evidence base into effective policy and child rights solutions, especially in the middle- and low-income countries where children are now gaining internet access. This is consistent with the commitment of the Global Kids online team to an active partnership between central coordinators and national projects, and between researchers and research users/stakeholders.

On 28 November, Dr Alison Powell(@a_b_powell) of the Department of Media and Communications was featured on the BBC World Service to talk about the rise of 'social bots' - pieces of software which aim to mimic human behaviour on social media to sway support towards, or away, from political candidates or parties.

On 22 November, Dr Shani Orgad of the Department of Media and Communications will be a talk on ‘refugees and the media: a crisis of imagination’ at the J. P. Morgan symposium on Philanthropy’s Role in the Refugee Crisis. Other speakers include UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein and Mark Golding, Chief Executive of Oxfam GB.

On 18 November, media policy expert Dr Damian Tambini (@DamianTambini) of the Department of Media and Communications gave a keynote address at the 2016 Annual Colloquium on Fundamental Rights in Brussels. The colloquium theme was ‘Media pluralism and democracy’ and Dr Tambini’s talk focused on protecting pluralism and media freedom and the free flow of opinions and ideas within and outside the EU. Dr Tambini is Director of the Media Policy Project and its accompanying blog, which aims to promote media policy communication between academics, civil society, media professionals and policy makers.

Professor Robin Mansell has been elected to the Board of Directors of TPRC – Research Conference on Communications, Information and Internet Policy– which meets annually in Arlington VA, US. Its mission is to promote "interdisciplinary thinking on current and emerging issues in communications and the Internet by disseminating and discussing new research relevant to policy questions in the U.S. and around the world. It serves researchers, policymakers, and members of the private sector and civil society, from students to well-established practitioners”.

LSE’s Learning Technology & Innovation have highlighted the amazing work of Dr Shani Orgad, Associate Professor, as one of four LSE Innovators case studies for Michaelmas Term 2016. You can find the link to her case study here. Her case study celebrates her work as an advocate for student learning and innovative pedagogy. Both through the interview and the case study, Shani demonstrates a critical but curious approach to teaching and learning, and her use of fictional characters like Paddington bear introduces a playful yet serious element to her teaching. This comes through clearly and passionately in the video that celebrates her work. Shani is the first of the LSE Innovators announced for 2016/17 and joins 11 other LSE academics as part of the Innovators series, which you can find here.

The Global Kids Online project, launched on 2 November 2016 at the Children’s Lives in the Digital Age seminar held at UNICEF Headquarters in New York, aims to build a global network of researchers investigating the risks and opportunities of child internet use. The Global Kids Online website makes high quality, flexible research tools freely available worldwide.

Speaking at the New York launch event, Principal Investigator Professor Sonia Livingstone observed: “As the internet reaches more children in more countries, it is vital to extend the evidence base to guide policy makers as they balance children’s rights to participation, provision and protection online.”

On 2 November, Dr Ellen Helsper (@EllenHel) of the Department of Media and Communications was in Chile to present a paper at the COES-LSE Conference on Inequalities entitled ‘Digital inequalities in Latin America: An evaluation of the definition, development and potential effectiveness of Policies’. On 3 November, Dr Helsper presents her book chapter: Inequalities in Digital Literacy: Definitions, Measurement, Explanations and Policy Implications (from the TIC Household Survey Book, 2016) in Sao Paolo.

Dr Bart Cammaerts of the Department of Media and Communications was in Sweden on 29 October to present a paper entitled ‘Self-mediation practices of the anti-austerity movement. A dialectic between the symbolic and the material’ at a colloqium on Communication, material and discursive power dynamics, co-organised by Uppsala University and DESIRE, the Centre for the study of Democracy.

Professor Lilie Chouliaraki of the Department of Media and Communications will present a public lecture at Northwestern University's School of Communication in Illinois on Monday 31 October. Professor Chouliaraki will present findings from her and Myria Georgiou's fieldwork conducted in December 2015 on the Greek border island of Chios in a lecture entitled The Digital Border: The Communicative Networks of Reception during the European Refugee Crisis. This event will follow a symposium co-sponsored by the Department of Media and Communications and Northwestern University on The Ethics of Media, taking place on 27 and 28 October and featuring keynotes by Paul Frosh (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Nick Vaughan-Williams (University of Warwick). She will also give the keynote lecture at the 6th International Conference on Digital Ethics at Loyola University and offer a faculty talk at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

LSE’s inaugural Excellence in Education Awards were made in June 2016, to a total of 5 members of faculty from the Department of Media and Communications:

Is the European media reflecting the “refugee crisis” or helping create it? This is the question posed by Myria Georgiou, Deputy Head of LSE Media and Communications, in her project analysing how newspapers in nine European countries covered the so-called refugee crisis in 2015.

Myria's seemingly impossible idea is for the media to be more productive in helping us understand complex issues around migration. Check the video here.

Charlie Beckett has written a report in collaboration with Tow Centre for the Digital Journalism in New York that looks at the problems facing journalism around terrorism: the increasing speed of the news cycle; new technologies and the limits on resources; the challenge of verification, definition, proportionality; and dealing with spin and propaganda. The report was recently launched at an event in the Columbia Journalism School in NYC on 17th October.

On Wednesday 28 September, Professor Livingstone addressed the Ad hoc Committee for the Rights of the Child (CAHENF) at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on developing guidance for its 47 member states regarding the rights on the child in the digital environment. In presenting discussing the priorities for action, illustrated with good practice case studies and framed by an analysis of the legal standards in Europe related to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, she built on her earlier presentation to the Conference on the Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child (2016-2021) Sofia, April 2016.

Congratulations to Paula Kiel, doctoral researcher in the Department of Media and Communications who has won the Association of Internet Researchers (AoIR) 2016 Best Student Paper Award. Her paper - The emerging practices of the collective afterlife: multimodal analysis of websites for post-mortem digital interaction - particularly impressed the judging panel for its strong theoretical grounding, the novelty of its object, and its overall relevance to the field of internet research.

Professor Nick Couldry (@CouldryNick), Head of the Department of Media and Communications, was featured in The Conversation on 23 September in an article focusing on ‘The price of connection: ‘surveillance capitalism’. Professor Couldry’s article explores the risks to freedom, autonomy and democracy posed by living in a society which increasingly relies on connecting individuals through internet platforms. The article is part of a wider project on The Price of Connection that Professor Couldry is undertaking for The Enhancing Life Project, funded by the University of Chicago.

Professor Livingstone commented: “It’s an honour and a challenge to act as specialist advisor to the Communications Committee inquiry. An honour, because it’s a fantastic group to work with, and I know we’re about to be deluged with evidence in response to the call. A challenge, because there’s so much that needs to be done.”

Dr Ellen Helsper, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communicationsprovided input to the Barclays Digital Development Index, which benchmarked 10 countries around the world on their readiness to compete in the digital economy. Launched on Tuesday 19 July, the report, which can be found here, highlights that the UK, one of the most active online consumer markets globally, lags behind other countries when it comes to being able to create new digital technologies.

Dr Helsper commented: “One organisation – whether government, business or charity – will not be able to tackle this problem alone. Nor can there be a ‘one size fits all’ approach. The solutions must be tailored to the needs and circumstances of the people that are going to be using these technologies.”

During the 2016 POLIS conference on April 21, researchers from Media and Communications department’s European Migration Crisis and the Media project presented their preliminary findings for the first time. A panel consisting of Dr Myria Georgiou and Dr Rafal Zaborowski along with student researchers Antonis Dimitriadis, Lisa Elkhoury, Afroditi Koulaxi, Sadichchha Pokharel and Pauline Vidal discussed their research on European media coverage of the migration crisis. See here for powerpoint presentation and audio.

Congratulations to Rafal Zaborowski who was awarded an LSE Students’ Union (LSESU) Class Teacher Award for his excellent teaching during the 2015-16 academic year. The award was presented to Dr Zaborowski at the Teaching Awards Celebration event in The Venue on the evening of Wednesday 11 May. See the full listing of LSESU Teaching award winners 2016 here.

On 18 April, Professor Charlie Beckett of the Department of Media and Communications appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week to discuss news reporting on war, conflict the rise of citizen journalism. Listen here.

On 19 April, Professor Sonia Livingstone of the Department of Media and Communications appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Today to discuss the first parliamentary inquiry into the scale of sexual harassment and violence in schools. Listen here from 1hr 9mins.

On 19 April, Dr Nick Anstead of the Department of Media and Communications appeared on BBC Radio 4’s World Update to discuss party politics and identity. Listen here.

LSE's Department of Media and Communications has been rated #1 outside of the US and #3 globally in the 2016 QS World University Rankings, with USC Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication again rated #1 in the world. The two institutions collaborate on a double degree in MSc/MA Global Media and Communications, as well as joining forces to research the profound implications of media and communications technologies for our shared futures. See more Find out more.

LSE Department of Media and Communications convenes a meeting of Global Kids Online ahead of launch of global toolkit for research on children’s digital experience

LSE’s Department of Media and Communications and UNICEF Innocenti are convening the second Global Kids Online network meeting at LSE on 21 and 22 March 2016. The network will be presenting the lessons learned from international research findings on children’s internet use and will develop research and policy recommendations for the launch of the toolkit in late 2016.

The meeting will host close to 40 academics and UNICEF staff from 14 different countries, including Argentina, South Africa, Serbia, the Philippines, Montenegro, India, and Ghana). A report from the meeting will be published on the project website shortly after the meeting. See here for more information on this meeting.

Alison comments: “I am interested in how people think about technologies, and how they can build them in ways that transform the world… when we build technologies, especially of communication, we actually build them with a set of values that are in the world that we occupy at the time that we build them.”

Alison will be giving an LSE networkEd seminar organised by LSE’s Learning Technology & Innovation team us on 18 May 2016.

On Friday 29 January, Professor Sonia Livingstone was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Panthéon-Assas (Paris II). The award was conferred to her by the President of the University, William Leyte, in the great amphitheatre.

Professor Livingstone said: "Collaborating with researchers across Europe has long been central to my work on audiences, given the transnational nature of media, so it was a pleasure to receive this honour from the University of Panthéon-Assas.

Robin Mansell, Professor of New Media and the Internet and LSE Deputy Director and Provost, has been featured in the January 2016 Newsletter of the International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR). Professor Mansell has been highlighted for the contribution to the life and work of IAMCR. She joined IAMCR in 1984 and over the years has been an active member and served as a section head as well chair or member of numerous committees. Read more here.

Dr Ellen Helsper, Associate Professor, participated on 6 & 7 January in a meeting launching the Kids Online Chile survey and the Latin American Kids Online project. The meeting was organised by the Universidad Catolica de Valparaiso and the Universidad Catolica de Chile in Santiago, where 30 experts from Chile and abroad discussed how to adapt the surveys of Kids Online Europe to the contexts of different Latin American countries and to design the Chilean survey.

PhD ResearcherCesar Jimenez-Martinez was interviewed by the Brazilian blog Brasilianismo about the media coverage of the January 2016 protests in Sao Paulo. 'Given that violence has become the centre of the debate, the reasons why people are protesting get buried', he said.

Dr Shani Orgad, Associate Professor will be a panel-member at the Reading The Pictures Salon event on The Visual Framing of the Migrant Crisis. The event will be held on Sunday 10 January 2016 on a Google HangOut platform accommodating live audio and video with involvement from viewers via live chat.

Event abstract: Photos of the migrant crisis have dominated the media space over the past year. What can we learn from the way traditional and social media, primarily in the west, has depicted the crisis in terms of context; scale and scope; demographics (including gender, race and nationality); geopolitics; aesthetics; empathy and sensitivity?

Dr Bart Cammaerts, Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Communications will give a keynote lecture on 2 December in Sorbonne, Paris at the Institut des Sciences de la Communication (CNRS/Paris Sorbonne/UPMC) Times and Temporalities of the Web conference. His lecture is entitled “The Resistant Shaping of Technologies of Self-Mediation: hacking print, telecoms, broadcasting and the internet”.

This presentation will be focusing not only on digital technologies, but also on what are commonly called traditional media, print cultures, audio and broadcasting, especially radio, but also on the role of telecommunication. The temporal dimension in my intervention will thus relate to a historical dimension and the various ways in which counter-cultures and activists have over time appropriated and subsequently perverted information and communication technologies to suit their particular needs and to shape the media and communication technologies at their disposal into tools of resistance. At the same time, we can also observe that the powers-that-be do everything they possibly can to disrupt, regulate, impede, limit, the impact of resisting groups appropriating their own means of communication, … not always successfully. In fact, the creativity of activists to bypass the multiple repressive tactics by the state and the corporate sector is quite astonishing and consistent over time; very often activists use or deturn – to use a Debordian term – the system against the system, which amounts to a hack.

Besides this historical perspective at an empirical level, I will also mobilize Foucault’s notion of Technologies of the Self to make sense of the various ways in which the self-mediation practices of activists and social movements feed into the construction of their collective identity as well as the enactment of their protest mobilizations and actions. The Technologies of the Self also serves theoretically to understand how this process, which has a symbolic as well as a material side, is characterized by simultaneously operating and ever changing agentic as well as constraining dynamics. The interplay between these dynamics tends to give rise to productive and innovative activist interventions when it comes to the shaping of media and communication technologies for activist needs

Professor Beckett says: "This is a critical time for broadcasting in Britain and I look forward to contributing some insights from my time both as a journalist and academic to the policy-making process."

César Jiménez-Martínez, PhD Researcher in the Department of Media and Communications, participated in the colloquium 'Trauma and Memory: Europe and Latin America', which took part in the Embassy of Argentina. The colloquium is part of the European Union funded project MEMOSUR: Lessons for Europe from Argentina and Chile.

This book analyses and assesses the contexts, nature and the diversity of young people's participation in European democratic life. The authors provide an interdisciplinary conceptual framework addressing participation, power, democracy, efficacy and media. Using dynamic, original data collected in surveys, focus groups, interviews and a field experiment, Youth Participation in Democratic Life address young people's attitudes towards voting, participation and representation in policy processes and politicians. Democracy is, however, much more than voting, so volunteering and contentious politics are also elaborated upon. Examining the role of traditional and new media in facilitating youth participation in democratic life, as well as the complex dynamics of youth exclusion from economic, educational and social spheres, the book reveals that most young people are far from apathetic about democracy but rather they are critical of current representative democratic systems and the political elites who appear to run these.

A new online Digital Exclusion Heatmap tool which shows, for the first time, a single nationwide measure of the likelihood of digital exclusion across the UK was launched today by Go ON UK in partnership with LSE, the BBC and Local Government Association

The Department's Dr Ellen Helsper who developed the methodology behind the map, said: “The heat map is a wake-up call. It shows clearly how social and digital exclusion are closely related. The lack of basic digital skills and access in already disadvantaged areas is likely to lead to an increase in inequality of opportunity around the UK.”

Professor Charlie Beckett has been appointed as Special Advisor on broadcasting to the House of Commons Select Committee for Culture, Media and Sport. He will be advising the committee on its inquiries into the future of Channel 4 and the BBC's Charter renewal as well as identifying future topics for the committee to address.

Establish a standing committee to monitor media representation of gender.

Foster critical media literacy skills in schools.

Training on gender to be part of professional qualifications for journalists.

Implement the Leveson Report to allow action on third party complaints, eg from women’s groups.

'Thank you Shanghai', video by LSE-Fudan MSc alumnus Ariel Margalith, goes viral in China, reaching over 60 million views. The video has been covered by media in China, Israel and the United States, and has been shown on outdoor screens all over Shanghai.

PhD Researcher César Jiménez-Martínez was invited to present his work 'Between the streets and the stadiums: looking at the international image of Brazil through the eyes of a Chilean' at the conference 'Remapping Brazilian Cultural Studies', organised by the European Network of Brazilianists working in Cultural Analysis, Rebrac, at Senate House, in London.

USC Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication was rated #1 in the 2015 QS World University Rankings, with LSE's Department of Media and Communications rated #1 outside of the US. The two institutions collaborate on a double degree in MSc/MA Global Media and Communications, as well as joining forces to research the profound implications of media and communications technologies for our shared futures. Find out more.

Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory and Head of the Department of Media and Communications has launched a brand new website nickcouldry.org, which features information on Nick's work, with regular updates on events, books and research activities.

Digital technology advances are opening up new ways to communicate, with the potential to enhance student–teacher relationships.

Nick Couldry, Professor of Media, Communications and Social Theory, has been appointed as a lead coordinating author for the International Panel on Social Progress 2017 Report 'Rethinking Society for the 21st Century'. Professor Couldry will work with Professor Chua Beng Huat(National University of Singapore) to coordinate a chapter on Media, Communication and Languages. See a full list of authors.

We are proud to announce that Media and Communications faculty have been recognised by LSE students in the LSE Teaching Excellence Awards Congratulations. Dr Shakuntala Banaji won the Award for Exceptional Contribution to Teaching, with Dr Sally Broughton-Micova also receiving an award for her contribution to teaching this year.

In 2014, Polis and StockWell Communications launched a research prize open to LSE post-graduate students. Applicants were asked to submit original research proposals on the topic of ‘Corporate Reputation, Media and Society’.

Professor Livingstone is the latest LSE academic to undergo a Gearty Grilling, a series of short video debates from LSE’s Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) on key issues affecting the world today. Here, Professor Livingstone discusses the challenges of keeping children safe online.

Charlie Beckett documentary explores whether there is an unrelenting negativity in the mainstream news agenda, preoccupied with violent crime, human accident, misfortune and disaster. In addition, you can read his article for The Guardian.

We are delighted to announce that the Department has been ranked first in the UK in its Unit of Assessment in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework assessment: 47% of our outputs were world-leading as were both impact case studies, our impact environment and our general research environment.

Claire Milne, Visiting Senior Fellow in the Department of Media and Communications, has been awarded an MBE for services to the telecommunications sector in the 2015 New Year's Honours list. Many congratulations to Claire, who has had a long and varied career with telecommunications policy as its central theme. Read more here.

The Department of Media and Communications mourns the sudden death on 1 January 2015 of Ulrich Beck, Centennial Professor at LSE and a leading theorist of cosmopolitanisation, and media and communications' role within it. LSE Director Craig Calhoun has written a piece commemorating Professor Beck, which can be found here.

Visiting Professor Philip Schlesinger has been appointed to UK regulator OFCOM’s Media Content panel. Congratulations to Professor Schlesinger from the whole Department on this very important appointment.

This year’s Prize will be launched with a presentation by Mr Anthony Silverman, Partner at StockWell Communications. If you are interested in applying please attend next week’s talk as the application process and requirements will be explained.

Date: Wednesday 19 November

Time: 13:00-14:00pm

Room: G06, 32 Lincoln’s Inn Fields

Sonia Livingstone's new grant, Preparing for a Digital Future, is part of Connected Learning, a way to approach education in the 21st century that takes advantage of today's abundance of information and social connection, and recipient of a $4.9 million grant.

Andrew Crosby was awarded the 2014 Silverstone Scholarship for his research proposal on how Facebook users think about how social media fits into their lives. What do you think of when you think of Facebook? He asks. Below is a short excerpt of Andrew's proposal and you can read it in full on our Polis blog.

We are delighted to announce that Professor Sonia Livingstone has been awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Montreal. The award will be presented to Professor Livingstone in a Convocation of the University of Montreal’s Arts and Sciences Faculty on October 29th.

Many congratulations to Professor Livingstone in receiving this honour.

Professor Robin Mansell’s new UNESCO report, Renewing the Knowledge Societies Vision for Peace and Sustainable Development, is available here.

QS World University Ranking rate the London School of Economics as the best place in the UK to study media and communications and #2 worldwide.

On Tuesday 4 March, Professor Sonia Livingstone collected her OBE, for services to children and child internet safety, at Buckingham Palace. Sonia is the first academic in the field of media and communications nationally ever to receive such an honour. The Duke of Cambridge presented Professor Livingstone with her medal and congratulated her on her important work.

Max Hänska and Maria Kyriakidou invite contributions to a blog on the way the Euro crisis is covered in the news, and the way it is affecting the news media in particular, and public discourse in Europe in general.

It is close to 10 years since corporate giant Nike coined the slogan ‘The Girl Effect,’ claiming that girl power held the key to ending world poverty and launching a campaign to support that vision. In a new book chapter published this month, LSE Fellow Dr Ofra Koffman critically considers this policy.

The Net Children Go Mobile project, report finds that while smartphone and tablet users benefit from more online opportunities and along with this encounter more risks, they do not report more harmful experiences.

Sonia Livingstone, Department of Media and Communications, LSE: “Safer Internet Day sees the combined efforts of educators, industry and child welfare experts combine to call for a better internet for kids worldwide.

We are pleased to announce that Damian Tambini and Nick Couldry have been awarded LSE Research Committee Seed Funding to develop their research project on the 'Mediatization' of Government. This will include a seminar series and conference in Spring 2014. More details to follow.